leland * i'm leland vittert in new york. we are two hours into a large^-scale power outage. subway service shut down on a busy saturday night. as you look at times square, there are tens of thousands of people out on the street who would not normally be there. a number of theaters have gone dark with this power outage, sending people out into the streets. the new york city skyline now dark in so many of those places.

dark except for their emergency lights. we'll take a look up 6th avenue, it would normally be packed with cars. it's now packed with people and empty with cars as police shut down a number of intersections to allow the fire department to get through to 44,000 customer without power. that's customers. that could be a single building without power and people stuck in the elevators. the new york fire department saying they are dealing with multiple reports of people stuck in elevators across the upper westside and midtown manhattan. is there not panic on the streets. but there are there is a lot of people on the streets and a lot of confusion on the streets. ebb some hotels told people to walk out of their

establishments. you can see as we look up 6th after through, a city shut down, crippled on a very busy packed summer night. and it's hot outside. we are told there are countless folks trapped in underground subway cars and elevators as well. we bring in bill stanton, security and safety expert. bill, obviously you have a plan for everything when you are the nypd. what's the plan for this and what's happening at blackout plus two hours? >> they have contingency plans working with all other emergency services. emt, fire department, et cetera. obviously first thing, safety and security, for the folks that have medical issues that need power.

this is where the citizens of new york all need to come together. even if it's old school knock on your elder think neighbor's door that might have a medical device that requires power. all of these things need to come into play to keep us all safe and secure. leland: we heard from police and the fire department, do not call 911 unless it is a true emergency. they have had such a spike in phone calls. how long does it take for the nyp -- and nyfd to clear these

buildings? >> it is a weekend, they can eliminate the office building. so a lot of the office building elevators are generally empty right now. it's a tough call to answer. it's a good one but a tough one to answer because we only have so many officers and members of the fdny and there are a lot of buildings in new york city. it's incumbent to people if they are in elevators and they are listening to stay calm and know help is on the way. leland: it's dark and you can imagine how stifling it would be stuck on a subway car. the image we have now is of times square. we'll switch it to our 6th avenue camera and you will notice that even the sign for radio city music hall is dark.

you have been here for a long time. if you have been here for that to happen? leland: have you ever seen that happen with the radio city music hall gone dark? >> never, never. i was a teenager in '77. it was a different time. but i have never seen radio city go dark. no jacqui heinrich is on the streets of manhattan. when i walked up, there were huge crowd and confusion. but there wasn't the kind of panic you would expect from people in the middle of the city now dark. >> it's obviously a different scene than those those folks in elevators or underground. on the treat here in midtown manhattan people were kind of enjoying it. you have seen some of the

broadway shows brought their concert out on the streets. the carnegie hall concert moved out on to the streets. and people are getting along just as best they can. managing. the sun has gone down so it's a little bit cooler. i am here with a street vendor, where you were when the lights went dark. you said people wear little bit startled, but not panicked. >> i try to meet somebody, and when we go to the store we see dark area and it shut down and nobody can buy anything. today, 6th avenue. reporter: you are running one of your street carts.

so cash is king on a night like this. though restaurants are shut down and people can't pay their bills. some of the areas that don't have power. so people are turning to you and other vendors who might use the cash apps or care card to make their transactions. have you met a lot of people who are hungry. >> we try to help the customers. reporter: some of the stores that were unable to close their metal barricade. that was one of the inconveniences for some of the areas that didn't have power. the electricalally generated closer. so far no reports of injuries.

i saw the last updates from the fire department in new york saying they were trying to get a hold on the transformer fire. but no injuries reported associated with that. and at the last update the new york city subway system advising people to avoid underground subway stations and use buses if you can. traffic is moving, but it's being directed by hand by some of new york city's finest. folks are just doing the best they can and waiting for the lights to come back on. in the meantime enjoying a simpler time. leland: there is a lot of things we take for granted. you press a button and you expect to happen. we are told it was a transformer fire that has started this cascading effect across much of the upper westside of new york

city. 44,000 customers without power. but in new york a customer can be an entire building. some of the crosstown traffic, you had new york's finest directing traffic by hand. in the minute this happened and you were still here at the office. as you walked downstairs and outside, was there and pick? what was the general feel in those first couple of minutes? was it fear? give us an emotion. reporter: not at all. folks are taking pictures and tweeting about it. whether they had to abandon their plans. got out of their cabs or left the places they are heading to. so it was more amusement than

anything. you want to be respectful of people stuck in elevators. we do know rescues were happening on the westside of manhattan. the fire department at one point was responding to hundreds of calls. out on the street people who are not trapped. they are smiling and looking at each other. the hashtag blackout was trending on twitter when i was still in the building. at the moment the lights went out a couple hours ago now it was a bit of a different scene. you heard a big announcement. even at our building while i was in the studio the announcement came over our intercom telling folks in the building that the elevators were down. we knew about folks trapped on floors, here is the number you

call. a lot of the businesses were doing that as well. a movie theater on lincoln square evacuated everybody. i think at that point there was a little bit more confusion. but people have cell phones, they know what's going on. and so far there hasn't been any information about arrests coming from our city officials. just interested in when things are going to get back going. i think the businesses losing money tonight are having the worst time of it. leland: you noted the hashtag blackout. it was 42 years ago tonight of the massive blackout in 1977. they didn't have a hashtag but they were talking about it. we'll check back in with jacqui as the new york police

department continues to try to get traffic moving. we saw a number of signal lights out. that's why we look up 6th avenue, it is void of so many cars. when you look at the show it's grainier than normal. that's because it's so dark. we had to have the cameras open their iris to give you have a view of how dark it is. some of the billboards are still light. but in the upper left-hand corner of your screen, that was a billboard that should be lit up. people pay tens of thousands a day for that billboard it's dark tonight. you can see the streets packed with people and what cars are aloud on the streets are quite literally crawling along. i want to bring in joe borelli who is a new york city councilman with the latest on this from his perspective.

we know there is a blackout from the mid-70s to the mid-50s on the westside of manhattan. give us a status report. >> thankfully we have a very robust office of emergency management. the fdny and nypd. a lot of people don't realize this, but the fire department has close to 300 fire companies working 24/7. and they will be diverting resources to start answering some of the high 0 volume of -- the high volume of 911 calls. if people are stuck in an elevator, they are calling 911.

the volume has spiked. but it's something the office of emergency management prepares for and they will be rolling out extra buses and getting people where they need to go. >> so much of new york moves around on the subway. we are hearing reports of people trapped underground without air-conditioning for over an hour. so many of the subway lines are shut down. any information on if people are still trapped in the subways or has that been cleared? >> the last i heard the trains were brought to the station and people had the option of exiting which assume most of people did do. hell * no kidding. >> sometimes the trains stop and you give it a few minutes and they start again.

but, you know. a night out, trying to use the restaurant to see a broadway show. it will be a significant economic impact. where is mayor deblasio? leland: i think we'll leave politics at the blackout evening for the moment here. but you bring up the economic impact of this. when we look at times square, so many of the billboard are dark. that's tens of thousands of dollars a day being lost. you mentioned and i want to get back to the issue of the fdny bringing in crews from other boroughs. many of the avenues have been

shut down by the police department. is that to allow the rescue crews into the city in is that part of a plan that's already there or is it made up as it goes along? >> the city has a huge gridlock problem as you are probably aware. so to have this many cars on the streets without any type of traffic signaling is a huge problem. so the first thing the police are going to do is start moving traffic out of the area that's affects. leland: if you look back at the blackout of 1977, this is different in that it's a lot more isolated. this was -- this was a transformer that was burned. people are still stuck in

elevators. but it's not like the entire city of new york is blacked out and you have to have people walking across bridges for miles to get out of the city. >> right. i am sure the city will open cooling centers. and in behind sigh -- in hindsit know how long this will continue. we are not out of the wood yet. i don't want to say just because people are outside singing and dancing. if you look at twitter you will see a lot of people having fun with this blackout. but that might not be the case if this goes on for a number of hours. leland: 9:15 eastern time in new york and you can emergency an

11:00, 12:00, 1:00 a.m. when you would like to be home. you have kid at home with babysitters. you have older folks who are hot and miserable on the streets, things could change pretty quickly. we are looking at a live picture where there is police tape up and we see a lot of new york police officers heading in. this is the transit center in new york city. this is where the transformer was? this is where the transformer blew that is cordoned off, and it's dark everywhere around there. and it looks like it's dark for blocks and blocks. this is on the westside of manhattan. do you have any sense when you talk to con ed and work on the contingency plans, is this a situation where you could have a

power outage for a couple of days until they can rebuild it? >> there are so many different things that can go wrong. but sometimes we see cases where con-ed brought in a portable generator. it's tough to say whether they have the capacity to bring portable generator should that be needed. leland: this is on the very westside of manhattan between 70th and 50th street. if we do a split screen from where the transformer blew, it's totally dark with the exception of emergency lights. the buildings have elevators. you conceivably could have people trapped in those elevators. the right-hand side of your screen is looking up 6th after

through where there are a few more lights in some of the high-rises that have generators and emergency power systems. but still no traffic lights. for folks who don't live in manhattan and don't live in new york, you only visited a couple times. give us a sense of the difference of a couple of streets from midtown in times square to new york city to where folks actually live and don't have any of the emergency backups like times square does. >> most of of the building in central midtown will have their own generators and fire suppressant officers in the building. once you go to the west, where most of of the buildings are four stories, five stories and mostly residential, that's where you will find the real new yorkers just living and eating

and breathing. that's where you will find most of of the problems. they will be stuck in their upper floor apartments. these are 10 amounts from the early 20th century and and 19th century. people are going to be unfortunately very, very hot. it will be difficult. and older people will have a hard time. leland: joe, we'll let you get back to your job. i know you have constituents to look after. we'll check back in with you throughout the night. we are now 2 1/2 hours into this blackout between 50th street and 70th street on the westside of manhattan. you are looking at times square where you can see folks on the streets. very few cars.

cars have to be directed quite literally by hand at every intersection. all of the streetlights and traffic lights are out. it's right now 85 degrees, heat index of 86 degrees. if people are stuck under ground in subways or upper floors of apartment buildings or elevators, it will begin to get very uncomfortable very quickly. with that we bring in bernard kerik. former nypd commissioner who was through the terrible times of 9/11. you have to think, you can tell us more by the. contingency plans of the new york police department and fire department have for times just like this -- >> that's why the office of emergency manage many was created in 1996, which will be

the primarily event coordinator for something like this. the fire department has a job to do, the police department has a job to do, and the primary coordinator will be oem. leland: we have a crew down at the site where this transformer blew. there are a lot of nypd and fdny. take us through what each agency is doing. >> there is policies and protocols and place and plans in place for the response. the precincts, the fire stations, they are going to dispatch all their people. there will be a lighting mechanism. the police department has thousands of these generator lights they will have to get up and out. the fire department is going to be doing a lot of pulling people

out of buildings. they get stuck in elevators, or the high-rise rescue so to speak. i would advise people open your windows, stay where you are. and you don't want to overheat in a circumstance like this. and let the first responders do their job. leland: when you look at the fdny and fdny twitter accounts. we are awaiting a press conference 20 minutes from now at the command center for all of this as they take a look at why this transformer blew and how long it will take to restore power to all these folks. as we talk through this we are hearing from nypd and fdny saying we snow the power is out.

what is that line when they say until it's a true emergency. what constitutes a true emergency. >> a danger to a person, you know, physical danger, power lines possibly. health issues. if it's not that. then don't flood the 911 or 311 lines. because it's really busy right now. just stay stationary, listen to the broadcasts if you can. there is no telling how long it will take things to get back up and running. the less focused, the less push you have on the police department networks the better off they are. leland: we are getting information from in the metropolitan project sit

authority. service was affected on the a, c, b, correct and m lines. when you shut down that's subway lines in new york city, obviously we had folks trapped for a while. we understand most of of them have been pulled out after more than an hour. when you shut down that's subway lines what does that mean for this city? >> it means a lot. those lines will be impacted all over the city, not just the downtown area. the downtown area, that's the impact zone, but it will impact the rest of the city. not only for the subway lines, water lines, electricity, all of that stuff that is now down will have a negative impact. the less activity there is the better. let the first responders get out there and do what they want to

do. >> we are looking up 6th avenue and it's completely shut down of traffic and cars going north and south. is that to allow emergency crews and fire crews coming in from the rest of manhattan to move north and south in new york? what's the could be attorney general i plan? how does that work? -- what's the contingency plan? how does that work? >> they will need the tube to get north and south. because there is no light, you are going to have chaos if people are out on the street trying to drive. so the first responders will block off certain areas where they can get in and out quickly.

leland: there are tens of thousands' people out on the streets. we heard some restaurants saying don't worry about the check, just leave. folks trapped in elevators. not to diminish the seriousness of this. you have got 45,000 of customers, and hundreds of thousands if not mills of people without power. but as we think about a blackout from 50th to 70th street from 6th avenue over to the westside. it seems like it's a more manageable situation than when we had the blackout of the entire northeast and people were walking out across the brooklyn bridge. >> if you can get home, if you can get to where you need to be. get out of the way. get out of that area. the things that are down in that

area, they will ultimately impact the rest of the city. especially mass transit. the quicker you can get out of that general area the better off you are going to be. >> in 2 1/2 hours into this, what would you expect the new york police department, the office of emergency management to know? what are they ruling in and trying to rule out perhaps most of importantly in terms of cause, effect. what are they trying to guard against possibly happening next. what are they worried about? >> the initial thing will can what happened? why it happened, what happened. and how did they prevent it from spreading? that will be a big one. this is pretty much contained to the upper westside. you don't want it to spread, you don't want it to impact other areas that actually have power. the faster they can determine what happened how and why, the

better off they will be to make sure nothing is going to spread. leland: we'll ask you to and by for us at 9:30 eastern. as we look at the new york city skyline,' of it is dark. as we look down at ground level where a transformer blew. it's entirely pitch black. at bernard kerik told us, this is one of the main thoroughfares the police have shut down to move in a mass number of crews to flood this area of foo 50th street to 70th street because of a massive power outage. con-ed saying they bleach a transformer blew and that has caused this crippling power

outage. there are parts of the city that are totally dark including the famed radioed city music hall. a number of the billboard that are so fame out in times square are now dark. but there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people on the street. you might consider those on the street on a saturday in new york city when it's 86 degrees at 9:30 are the lucky ones. there were people caught in subject ways an hour or more -- caught in the subways an hour or more. and we are told a number of theatres on broadway quite literally went dark and told people to leave. the show is over, so get out.

restaurants told diners, don't worry about the check and get out as well. sometimes these situations bring out the worst in people. oftentimes they bring out the best this has brought out in people. we have seen so many people talking top each other. look at some of the hotels in new york city where every window is black. we bring in jacqui heinrich who is on the streets of new york city. 2 hours 45 minutes into this blackout. as you talk to people, give us a sense, are they calm about this? is the annoyance factor stepped in. >> not quite yet. i think that might happen tomorrow. hopefully it's restored by then. but as of now i think people are over the initial concern right when the power goes out people

wonder is there any kind of threat. as of now we know this is a transformer fire and there has not been any update from city officials indicating anyone is at risk other than the inconvenience of being stuck somewhere without a power or in an elevator or subway. we don't have any information yet as to any injuries associated with that. on the street in new york people where marveling at scenes you don't usually see. radio city music hall totally dark. people having to manually pull down the metal barriers. leland: i want to watch one of the buses go by. they brought in extra buses to move people out of midtown

manhattan because the subways are shut down. con-edison is working to restore power. the power outage was due to a manhole fire. please remain calm and safe. nypd counterterrorism units remain deployed in key locations throughout the city. jacqui, to bring you back in. we heard from bernard kerik who was the nypd commissioner for a while and others, that they are flooding the zone with members of the new york fire department, not only from manhattan, but from the other boroughs coming in for elevator rescues. they are still getting 911 calls of people trapped in elevators. have you been able to talk to

anybody in elevators or subways? reporter: we are hearing a lot of those rescue calls are coming from the upper westside. the hotels evacuated their customers to the streets. he pointed to the bus service. folks are wondering how do you get around tonight? they are being told to avoid underground subway stops. but five major subway lines for midtown manhattan are shut down. that would have had a larger impact on a weekday evening. in hell's kitchen area where a lot of tourists come, trying to check in with each other where they were when the power went

out. a lot of those rescues are happening in residential areas. just talking to a couple actually. you were talking about your experience when the lights went out and the hotel told you you might want to go outside? >> we had been in the city for 20 minutes and the lights went out. our key card worked. it wants as scary on the streets. reporter: what was the feeling when you got into the lobby. >> staff was pointing to what they needed to do. i think most of of the confusion was out in the streets. we saw masses of people out in the theater district and coming out of restaurants and stores where there were dark buildings. reporter: we are going back to a time when cash is king. we have the street vendor behind

me. he's dot doing great business. you don't need a credit card to deal with him. but del frisco's is totally dark. they evacuated all of their customers after they realized the power went down. i think for the area we are in, a lot of tourists, they are giving out water, they are trying to accommodate people. a lot of those rescues are more in the residential areas. the biggest concern is getting people to a save location. that's the case all across the area. police directing traffic by hand and trying to get from point a to point b. leland: tell the folks you are

with their next couple days in new york are bound to get better. bear with us here. this brings out the best in folks, the hospitality. we'll look up 6th avenue. you don't even see it that deserted on christmas. the traffic lights are all shut down. so the police have closed off a number of the north and south avenues to allow emergency crews to move through the city then trying to push cars that are on the streets of manhattan inside this affected area, 71st down to 42nd street over to 5th avenue. columbus circle, the time-warner center, it includes rockefeller center. it doesn't include the empire state building. but huge hand marks in new york city are dark. and much of the side of your screen from 6th avenue which

is the mid to westside of central park there and 8th avenue all the way west. that's all residential area. you put this in one of your monitor so we can show you better. there are tens of thousands of people who live in building that do not have backup generators. it's 85 degrees in new york city at:30 at night. -- at 9:30 at night and people are miserable. some of them are stuck in elevators. they are trying to make sure there is nobody still stuck in some of the subways. broadway has gone dark. there are some broadway performers out on the receipts to make sure the show goes on. the show did not go on at madison square garden where

brian llenas was there. brian: i was at madison care garden for my 31st birthday. the party was just getting started and at 9:25 the floodlights came on. the went out, an announcement over the intercom, over the speaker saying this was the building engineer and as a precaution we need everybody to evacuate the building. leland: i want to let our viewers know. we have you on the phone and we have your video up on the screen. we are watching video of these floodlights. this is after the power went out. people are turning on the lights on their phones? is that what folks did? >> yeah. the power went out and the floodlights came on.

we thought it was on the upper westside. obviously if you are talking about a power outage in time square, lincoln square, 59th street, madison square garden is 32nd, 33rd and 34th street. the floodlights came on, the engineer telling everybody to evacuate the building, and currently right now they are trying to track wait the building. people orderly. everyone is trying to walk count escalators. this was a sold out jennifer lopez show it was her second night here. obviously it was a disappointment for 19,000 fans. jennifer low pefs is from new york -- jennifer lopez is from new york herself.

we've have 19,000 people making their way count escalator which is not work. people are not too alarmed. it looks like most of people are -- we'll make our way out and we'll see what's happening. i looked out the windows and the parking garage lights are still on and the streetlights are on. but it's a warm night, now the streets will be flooded. leland: you made an excellent point of this being a wider spread than we first shot. the empire state building is also black. you are in a confined area, it's dark. it's saturday night, people are drink and getting ready for a great concert. are people scared or annoyed? >> honestly no. there is no party going on. i saw videos on social media

where people brought the show outside. some people came out and brought the party to the street. right now inside madison square garden it's quiet. we are dejected. we came here on a saturday night for a huge concert. but there noise panic. people are not running out. people are in an orderly fashion making their way count escalators. new yorkers have been through stuff like this before. we had big outages. and we'll see. but talking about that point, initially with the fdny, 42,000 people of on the upper westside. now obviously a little bit more concerned since it's making its way downtown. it circled down. and like i said.

leland: important perspective from. brianfrombryan. i have know you live a little bit away from midtown manhattan. any idea how you are going to make it home with the subways shut down? >> i'm going to try to get to if you guys to see how i can help. leland: we'll see what we can do. we are 20 blocks down. from the fox news studio. we'll see if we can get on air. but we'll try to make our way over. i'm here in a giant arena. things are very orderly. leland: thankfully there were emergency floodlights. the folks on the westside in some of the older buildings where there is not that kind of emergency lighting where the

air-conditioning goes out. stay with us, thank you very much. we are going to check back in with you as you make your way up here. we'll see you in a couple minutes. thank you. with that we bring in the fox news correspondent and "fox and friends" occasional weekend host, griff jenkins. the man who never sleeps. he's outside radio city music hall. griff jenkins, you and i have been coming up here for a long time and i don't remember seeing the radio city music hall sign dark. >> no, leland. you can see it's dark. the streetlight is out. there are no police directing it. traffic being polite about it. you see people honking, driving by in this live shot.

i was having dinner. i was about to go to bed when this happened. the lights went out at del frisco's. the kitchen was shut down, waiters were scrambling trying to figure out how to close out tabs. they had to close out the restaurant. i talked to one family from arizona. they were in a theater to see the play "wicked." and they said the lights went out almost immediate lid when they came in. it was a little bit scary and they were escorted out. they said they didn't realized the magnitude of the problem until they started to walk down times square and saw the billboard signs start to lose power. this was about an hour or so ago. you can see the situation as people work their way through this intersection. but you can see the stoplight is

totally out. at situation where i am, 6th avenue and 50th street. the lights are out as you mentioned for the first time. >> it's noteworthy, griff, as you look up 6th avenue and up toward central park. it appears to me the only vehicle i guess you could say were things with wheels on them. moving up ofth avenue is the rickshaws. i don't know if we can zoom in on this shot. but it hooks like there is a convoy of police cars and con-ed which is the power company trucks moving up 6th avenue. was that your what you are seeing as well? >> that right, lou. we have a live view on my live view it's a little dicey. but you can see the convoy

coming through. you can see the police moving through. we see a con ed truck trying to make its way through the intersection. when we first came out here we saw a strong police presence directing traffic. but i don't see that quite as much as we do now. clearly this is the epicenter of where it's happening. some of the food vendors' trucks -- leland: it's getting dark on your shot. it gives you a sense of how this city is going to change in the next couple hours as it goes from the blackout beginning around 7:00 here. now past 9:45. we are three hours into this. you can see the new york police department meeting and talking.

the worst part of this blackout area. todd star of foxnation made his way over. todd, can you hear me? reporter: i can. i'm slowly making my way over to that area. it's slow going. the reason why, it's pitch black out here. people are having a hard time walking around. they are using their smart phones, the flashlight on their mart phones to try to see as they walk through the darkness on this side of town. i have to tell you, people here are in good spirits. there are thousands of people literally just wandering the treats, many people are just sitting on the sidewalks. they have no place to go, many of the high-rise hotels have been evacuated.

leland: 44th and 8th is almost main and main of times square. as we go farther into the westside. we are watching some of the nypd brass walk out here by where this transformer exploded. we are hoping to get a news could be forensic in the next couple of minutes. we'll break in when that happens. core midtown, 6th after through, times care still has lights. but west into the residential areas there have to be hundreds of thousands of people in walk-up buildings with no power, no mcgenerators, stuck in elevators with no air-conditioning. that's different from being in midtown in times square where there are food vendors and everybody just walked out of a broadway play and this is a novelty. >> i saw dozens of people in the

walkup apartment building sitting on their too. many of the bars in this part of town are still open. one mexican restaurant set up, they are offering free legal grade sangria -- lemonade sangria to people walking by. there are no police officers directing traffic on this section of street. and so pedestrian are literally waving their control phones at cars hoping they will top so they can cross the road. i posted video of a civilian in the middle of the treat directing traffic. so folks hopefully will be careful out here. people are in good spirits, but you have got to be careful. leland: todd is over on 44th treat and 8th avenue safely trying to make your way over to the westside highway where we

believe this transformer that blew was. that's the largest police presence you see on our screen. a live shot of a huge group of nypd, fdny what looks to be con-ed, the power company convening to figure out what comes next. the structure response group is what one of those shirts says. you can manage the elevator rescues going on. there is no police officers in your area. there is nobody sort of directing light, if you will, and it's pitch black. have people started to get agitated or is there a feeling of we are in this together. let's see who we can help. >> people are honestly having a good time. no one seems to be upset or concerned right now. i came over from brooklyn.

i am on the b train line. our subway were shut down. we got as far as 32nd street and that's where the traffic came to a halt. i have walked up from 32nd street through times square, and folks are still having a pretty good time. what is fascinating about times square. most of of times square has power except for the western side. we are talking about the juniors cheesecake shop is and the hard rock cafe. they have no power at all. leland: not only do they have no power. but some of these buildings have no power. there are 44,000 customers we are told without power. but that number could go up or down. there are parts of manhattan

without power that is not included in what con-ed has told us. 44,000 customers is not 44,000 people. it -- it could be an entire office building or apartment building. the stoplights are on in times square. we don't know if that's new or not there. todd, as you are making your way through, are you seeing any rescues go on? this is 6th avenue, the fastest mode of transportation you get around town is by bike. are you seeing any fire trucks moving around, checking buildings in the residential parts affected by this blackout? reporter: just in the last 10 minutes i have seen a dozen fire trucks go by. 20 minutes ago i was in front of the westin hotel. there were two fire trucks and a

couple of ambulances in front of the hotel. and the police have blocked off that entire street. so it's for pedestrian traffic. i did not see them bringing anyone out. but the scuttlebutt i heard was they were bringing people out of the hotel. leland: we understand that in situations like this, once they realize this blackout is isolated and they think it's not going to spread, they try to bring in fdny crews from the other boroughs to begin going building bid building and searching for forks. we are three hours into this. the ny cxsgglue p. d and d the. the nypd. and hopefully people are not

still stuck in subways. that lasts an hour or so. did you see people sort of stream offing down and they were pushing people out or was it don't come here we are working? reporter: it looked, don't come here, we are working. there were hundreds of people gathered outside the hotel. i'm not sure what was going on. they were busy. i didn't want to bother them. but there was something happening in the hotel. i have to imagine it was getting people out. if people can understand, this remind me of what happened when the went out during hurricane sandy. it was pitch black. it's almost as if you are in the middle of a forest at 1:00 in the morning. leland: it's hard for to us visualize. where our cameras are, and we see them setting up a podium for

a potential press conference. todd, we'll let you continue to make your way west through the pitch black streets of new york city. todd, we appreciate you being with us. for those of you have joining us, it's we are three are sent to a blackout that is affected much as an midtown manhattan people stuck in subways for an hour and people still stuck in elevators. the new york police department and the new york fire department with emergency crews as they look up into the sky and see the lights of new york out in times square.

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leland: this is a "fox news" alert and i'm leland vittert in new york city. this is a theater now plagued with dark this. the massive power outage has taken over the entire west side of midtown from 42nd street up past columbus circle into the 70. live pictures right now the only reason you can see what's happening there as the fdny and nypd begin their coordination efforts is because of the emergency there. our camera crews it turns quite literally pitch black. 44,000 people